The Color of Air

by Gail Tsukiyama

  “Why did he come back then?”

  “He was in trouble,” Koji said. “I was trying to protect you.”

  Koji saw a flash of resentment in Daniel’s eyes. “You sure you weren’t trying to protect yourself?”

  Daniel’s words felt like a slap. Koji gripped the glass in his hand and sat forward in the chair. “I wish it were that simple,” he said flatly. “You want to hear the truth; your father was always a selfish son of a . . .” He paused to collect himself. “He came back because he needed money. He didn’t come back for you, or for your mother.” Koji stopped. He hadn’t meant to be so brusque, but he was tired of carrying the burden.

  Daniel sat still. Too still. Koji saw a thin layer of sweat on his forehead, felt his own stomach clench.

  Then Daniel abruptly stood. “I have to go,” he said.

  “Daniel, don’t,” Koji said urgently. “I was going to tell you.”

  “But you never did tell me, did you?” Daniel snapped back.

  “Daniel,” Koji repeated.

  He watched him leave and wanted to grab his arm, but knew to let him go. Daniel pushed through the screen door and hurried back to the truck. The engine roared to life as it backed up and raced down the dirt road, lost in the veil of dust. Daniel just needed time, Koji reasoned; it was his nature to think everything through. It must have felt like Franklin was leaving him all over again. Even as a boy when he was angry at Mariko, he went into his room, closed the door, and figured it all out in his head before talking to her again. Some things didn’t change with age.

  It’s only the beginning of the story, Koji thought, the hardest part I have yet to tell. He absently touched his stomach, felt the pain again. That night Franklin had become someone he no longer knew. So had he. If he were honest, there was truth in what Daniel had accused him of; he was trying to protect himself, protect what he had with Mariko, and why shouldn’t he? He was only too happy to be there after Franklin abandoned them. He’d done everything for Mariko. He had grieved for his lost boyhood friend, but the Franklin who returned was someone else. Was it so bad for Koji to be selfish for a change? Daniel deserved to know who his father was, both the good and the bad, even at the risk of Koji losing the only son he would ever have.

  Koji sat out on his porch until his whiskey glass was long empty and the light began to fade to a dull gray. He heard the buzz of mosquitoes, the cicadas just beginning their nightly song. On the other side of the mountain the lava continued its relentless flow. Koji sat on the porch until it was almost dark and the persistent scratching against the screen door forced him to stand and let Hula back out.

  29

  Run

  The truck bounced and rattled across the rutted road as Daniel drove back down to Hilo. He rolled down the window and gripped the steering wheel, angry and hurt that not only Koji but also his mother had kept his father’s return a secret from him. Over the years, she knew he yearned to know where his father was and why he never returned, and still she’d kept it from him. He couldn’t get over the feeling that she’d somehow betrayed him.

  “Where did Daddy go?” Daniel recalled asking his mother many months after his father hadn’t returned.

  “I don’t know,” she answered.

  “Is he lost?”

  “Yes,” she said, tears in her eyes.

  Daniel hated to see her cry and rarely asked again. But deep down there was a part of him that always hoped his father would return to them. He patiently waited year after year, only to realize now, when his father finally did, it had been kept a secret from him. Daniel swallowed down his anger, not only at Koji and his mother, but also at himself for not staying and listening to what his uncle had to say. Instead, he ran. When had running become so natural to him?

  The truck picked up speed on the downslope and suddenly he was going too fast. Daniel pumped the brakes to slow down just as his right front tire caught a rut in the road, the truck skidding and fishtailing, sliding sideways directly toward a grove of trees that led down to a steep ravine. Heart in his throat, he shifted down and turned into the slide like Koji taught him, finally coming to a stop, the truck stalling. Daniel sat for a moment, hot and sweaty, breathing heavy with relief. He caught his breath before he swung open the door to see if there was any damage to Uncle Samuel’s truck, grateful it hadn’t tumbled down the side of the ravine. By the time he was back in the truck he had calmed down a little. He knew better than to be driving so fast. Daniel counted himself lucky when he turned the key in the ignition, and after a few tries, the engine caught and roared to life.

  Daniel drove slowly the rest of the way back to town, his fury at being left in the dark all these years turning to a slower burn. The two people he trusted most in the world had kept his father away from him. The thought stung like an open wound, bringing tears to his eyes. As much as he wanted to hear the entire story of his father’s return, right now he needed distance.

  * * *

  By the time Daniel passed Yamamoto’s Gas Station and Oshima’s Grocery Store, it was nearly dark and the wind had shifted, carrying with it a heavier scent of sulfur. He parked Uncle Samuel’s truck in front of the market. As soon as Daniel walked in, he knew something was wrong. There were no voices, no locals greeting him as he stepped through the screen doorway, no bursts of laughter from the yard, or low drone of music coming from the radio. The OPEN sign still dangled in the front window, but Jelly wasn’t behind the counter, and the market felt bleak and eerily empty. Most of the time, Auntie Nori had to shoo away the last of the remaining stragglers at closing.

  Daniel paused when he heard voices coming from the kitchen. By their quiet tones, Auntie Nori and Uncle Samuel were in the midst of a serious conversation.

  Daniel stood in the kitchen doorway. “Is everything all right?” he asked, knowing it wasn’t.

  Uncle Samuel looked his way. “Daniel,” he said, with a quick smile, which disappeared as soon as he began to speak, “word come from the volcano center: the lava above Saddle Road has begun to flow.”

  Daniel’s throat went dry. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he’d been distracted the past two weeks, first by Mama and Maile, then by the news of his father’s return. Meanwhile the lava flow had edged ahead of everything else. Hadn’t he learned by now that life was a race you never could really win?

  “Which direction?” he asked, already knowing it wasn’t good with the market empty. Everyone must have hurried home after the news.

  Auntie Nori answered this time. “The geologists at the volcano center say it’s following the natural drainage down the mountain.”

  “Threatening our water, yeah,” Uncle Samuel added.

  “Not just our water,” Auntie Nori added, a quiet and steady dread in her voice. “The lava is flowing directly toward us.”

  “Have the geologists said anything about what they’re going to do?” Daniel asked. “There must be something?”

  “They’re not saying much right now,” Auntie Nori said. “Until they do, there’s nothing any of us can do, yeah, except wait again, and hope Pele will change direction, or stop the flow before it reaches town.”

  Daniel shook his head at the irony of it; modern science would always be at odds with the island’s ancient beliefs. He didn’t care which side won as long as the lava flow stopped. What Daniel hated most was the helpless waiting. If he were still working in the hospital’s emergency room, he’d be calling out for vital stats, saline drips, blood transfusions to a rush of people in motion, trying to find ways to save the patient. Instead they stood there powerless and silent while the lava flow continued to destroy everything in its way.

  Auntie Nori moved them out of the kitchen. On a piece of white butcher paper, she wrote the latest news to be tacked up on the bulletin board: WORD FROM THE VOLCANO OBSERVATORY CENTER . . .

  He knew word had already spread through the community. They would quickly gather again at the fish market for another meeting, even if there was little they could do
other than be together. Daniel’s first thought was to go see Maile, relieved to know Uncle Koji was safe up at Puli. The resentment he felt now seemed small and insignificant. He should have been reassuring Auntie Nori and Uncle Samuel, but his head was spinning, and all that came to mind were the lines from the children’s story his father had once read to him that afternoon years ago.

  “Run, run,” cried the snake.

  “To where, to where?” asked the rabbit.

  “As far away as you can go.”

  30

  Nightmares

  “Run, Nori, run!”

  Leia’s voice woke her. It was still dark outside and Nori couldn’t tell how long she’d been asleep. The news of the lava flowing toward Hilo had shaken her more than she wanted to admit. It kept her up for a good part of the night until she finally fell asleep, only to be jarred awake by the nightmare in the early hours of the morning. Samuel slept soundly beside her. Until he retired, Samuel would be getting up early, going down to the wharf, and readying the fishing boat to head out like clockwork every morning, six days a week. In shadow, his boots stood by a chair draped with his clothing waiting to be filled with the warmth of his body. It was something he still did now out of habit, just like she occasionally paused to listen for any sounds of the boys, even with them long gone.

  Nori lay still and couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that stayed with her even as the nightmare receded into the darkness. It felt so real, as if it were happening all over again. They were young, so full of life, she and Mariko were thirteen and Leia just fifteen, already tall for her age. They’d been down at the beach all day, Mariko rushing them to leave because she promised her mother she’d be home before sunset. They packed up and began walking home. After parting with Mariko, who took another road back to the green bungalow, she and Leia scurried toward their secret path, a shortcut down a cool and quiet strip lined with palm and banyan trees that cut through to the main road. Everything happened so quickly after that. She looked up and a man had suddenly stepped out from behind some trees. He was smiling when he saw them, a toothless grin, dressed in dirty clothing, his hair long to his shoulders. He stopped to ask them for directions, a small scar over his left eye rising and falling as he spoke. Nori knew the minute she saw him that something wasn’t right, the way he looked at them as if he wanted to swallow them whole.

  “What you girls doing out here alone?” he asked. It was a low, foreign voice. There’d been so many outsiders coming to Hilo to work on the sugar and pineapple plantations.

  “We aren’t alone,” Leia quickly answered. “Our parents are just over by the road waiting for us.”

  Nori was tongue-tied, not knowing how Leia could speak up so quickly. She had always been the quietest of them all.

  He looked toward the empty trail and laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  Nori’s hand found her way to Leia’s. She held on tightly. They took a step forward but he blocked their path.

  “Get out of our way,” Leia hissed. Her voice rose in anger and confidence.

  The man laughed, then pulled a knife out from behind his back. “And what if I don’t?” he said, waving it in front of them.

  Leia pulled Nori back quickly, stumbling one, two, three steps. Nori shuddered when she felt Leia’s hand slip from hers. In the next moment, Leia pushed her back and had rushed toward the man, catching him off guard with the force of her body and knocking him to the ground.

  “Run, Nori, run!” she yelled.

  Nori remembered her heart pounding in her chest, the sourness in the pit of her stomach rising to her mouth. There was a split second when she didn’t know what to do before a violent surge of fear rushed through her body. She turned and ran along the trail overgrown with shrubs and foliage, her eyes focused on the damp, uneven ground so she wouldn’t trip over the slippery rocks and protruding roots, thinking Leia would be following close behind her. Nori ran so fast and hard she thought her lungs would explode by the time, sticky with sweat, she finally reached the main road. Only then did she stop to take a breath, and realized Leia wasn’t behind her. A thick, dark fear filled her. Where is Leia? Where is she? Nori’s heart hammered in her chest. “Leia!” she called out once, frightened that the man might hear her. Terrified, she quietly backtracked down the trail, halfway back to the spot where the nightmare began, but there was no sign of Leia.

  She heard something, the snap of a twig.

  She heard something, the wind in the trees.

  She heard something, a distant voice.

  “Run, Nori, run!”

  * * *

  Nori ran toward town, frightened, hoping to flag down someone, but the road was quiet. Why was no one there? All Nori could think about was saving Leia the way Leia saved her. It felt like a long time before she stopped running, doubled over and out of breath, her lungs burning as she swallowed large breaths of air, not knowing what to do. She was drenched in sweat and it was still a few miles to town and then back. What would happen to Leia by then? Nori paused for just a moment before she turned around, thinking it would be faster to run back to the Natua house to tell Mama. Maybe Leia had gotten away, maybe she was already home waiting for her.

  By the time Nori turned onto their street, her legs ached. She hurried past her house without looking, hoping her parents weren’t home. It was just then that she heard her name called out. Nori paused to listen and heard her name fill the air again. It was Leia. She was hiding in the tear-down shed in their yard. It’s Leia, she thought, heart racing with happiness. But when the door of the shed cracked open, it took only a moment for Nori to realize that her freedom had come at a price. Even in the hot, small space, Leia was shivering. Nori couldn’t stop staring at her torn clothes, the thin, spidery cut on the side of her neck, her legs and arms scraped and bruised; the redness across her cheek where he must have hit her. Nori smelled the sack of pig shit her father had stored in the shed, hoping to grow taro, and thought she would be sick.

  “Leia!” She willed herself to reach out and hug her. “It’s over, it’s over,” Nori repeated, hugging her closer until she calmed. “Let’s go tell Mama,” she whispered. Mama would know what to do.

  Leia shook her head, her face a mask of anguish. “No, no, please no,” she said. “I just want it all to go away.”

  “We can’t—”

  “No!”

  “What if it happens again to someone else?” Nori said. Nori breathed in the smelly, stagnant air. She kept her voice low and calm. “He deserves to be punished. He needs to be put in jail.”

  Leia refused to listen. “Promise me, Nori!” she said, her voice tight and shrill, like a thread about to snap. “You won’t tell anyone about what happened. Promise me! Promise me!”

  Nori had pulled away from her. He is still out there, Nori thought, swallowing down her disgust. Her stomach turned. A sudden, strangled cry came from Leia, followed by a whispered litany of “promise me, promise me, promise me, promise me—”

  “Stop!” Nori screamed.

  Leia stopped.

  Nori leaned closer and whispered, “I promise.”

  Thankfully, her parents weren’t home. Nori took Leia to her room, where she washed her face, drank some water, and changed into one of her clean shirts.

  Then they walked back to the Natua house pretending nothing ever happened.

  * * *

  It didn’t go away. Two months later Leia realized she was pregnant. Through a girl they knew in school whose older sister was rumored to have been pregnant twice, yet never delivered, Nori was given the name and address of a woman who lived just outside of Hilo town “who could get rid of it,” the girl said. It is still an “it,” Nori thought, trying to stay calm. She pooled her savings, along with Leia and Mariko, only to have three dollars and twenty-three cents of the five dollars they needed.

  Nori suggested they ask one of the boys that they’d met down at the beach a few months earlier for help. It was taking a big risk: they hadn’t known them long,
but Mariko and Franklin were already smitten, and Nori instinctively knew that Koji was the one they could trust. He was calm and attentive. He always stood still, while the other two boys moved around in whirling circles.

  “What about Franklin?” Mariko had asked.

  “Franklin has too much going on,” she said, hoping to appease Mariko.

  Nori didn’t want to hurt her feelings and it seemed to work, although deep down, she wondered if Mariko knew, even then, that Koji was the reliable one of the two. They needed someone they could trust. Nori hoped it wasn’t a mistake. Fortunately, she’d been proven right. Nori watched Koji’s eyes when she asked him the following weekend and saw his care and understanding. He not only helped them with the rest of the money, but also insisted on going along with them when the time came. “Don’t know who you can trust, yeah,” he’d said. Nori was more than grateful to have him along.

  In the end, Leia wouldn’t have made it back home without Koji carrying her to the truck he borrowed from someone at the plantation. Only years later did Nori ask Leia what had happened that long-ago afternoon.

  * * *

  Leia had just turned sixteen at the time, too young and scared to know that the decision she was making out of shame and fear would haunt her through the years. She’d never forgotten the dampness of the dark room, stinking of mildew and rot, thinly masked by the sharp, medicinal edge of rubbing alcohol. “Lay still.” She heard the older woman’s monotone voice, and felt the hands of another, younger woman pushing her down, holding her, pinning her arms hard against the table covered in newspaper, legs spread open, something cold entering her. She remembered screaming, like it was happening all over again, his awful smell as they fell to the ground, the weight of his body rolling over and pinning her, a rock pressing against her back, his dirty, rough hand smothering her breath as she gagged, vomit rising, trying to fight as he forced her legs apart, slapping her hard and pressing the blade against her neck. “Shut up! Shut up!” he’d told her. He wouldn’t hurt her if she’d just shut up and be still. All she could think then was that Nori was safe. It would be all right, it would be all right. Should she have fought harder, should she have screamed louder?